


in dreams

by dizzy



Series: we're all dying anyway 2019 daily fic advent [17]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:07:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21894859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: prompt:Phil has been sent from the future to ensure that Dan prevents the end of the world
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Series: we're all dying anyway 2019 daily fic advent [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1559167
Comments: 15
Kudos: 141





	in dreams

Phil is having a very strange dream. 

He's standing in the middle of a lounge that he's been in before, but it never looked like this. 

Dan's there, too. But Dan's never looked like this, either - at least not in the time Phil's known him. He's only seen this Dan in pictures. 

"Are you actually shitting me?" Dan asks. He looks terrified but he's trying not to show it, tilting his chin at a cocky angle. "How did you get in? If you're here to murder-stab me or something, just do it fast." 

The man looks taken aback. "Wow," he mutters. "This is weird." 

Dan scowls distrustfully. "Are you a friend of my mum's or something? She's not home. She never is. Neither of them are." 

"I'm not a friend of your mum," Phil says. "I'm- my name is Phil. I - I guess I'm meant to say that. I don't know, actually. I don't really have any rules. I think I'm dreaming." 

Dan looks even more wary. 

"No shit. Are you mental?" he asks. "You're an adult and you just walked into my house in the middle of the day. Should I start screaming bloody stranger danger or something?" 

Dan's voice is high in this dream, like puberty's only a passing acquaintance of his. Of course, Phil knows from firsthand experience that Dan's journey of growing up - in a physical sense - comes in multiple stretched out phases. But this Dan has soft rounded cheeks and his hair falls flat and long swept over his forehead, an amateur attempt at what will some day become a signature style. 

"I'm not a danger to you," Phil says. 

He walks forward. 

Dan takes a few steps back. 

Phil sees his eyes flicker over, toward the doorway. It goes to the... kitchen? Phil thinks. He hasn't been in this house in a few years, fewer times in the whole of the last decade than he's got fingers on one hand. 

"I can scream really loud," Dan says. 

Phil laughs. "I know." 

Dan looks even more alarmed. 

Phil holds his hands up. "I'm not going to hurt you, I promise. This is just a really weird dream for me. I'm going to wake up and you're going to be in bed beside me and I'm going to tell you that I met your fetus teenage self and you're going to have such a laugh and tell me that I should be glad I didn't really know you then." 

Dan walks out of the room. 

Then he comes back. 

"Why would I ever be in bed with you?" he demands. There's a tremor in his voice he probably thinks he's hiding, but he's not. "You're like, forty or something." 

"Oi!" Phil says. "I'm thirty three!" 

"Close enough." Dan waves a hand. "That's twice my age." 

Phil scrunches his face up. "Well, it won't be when I wake up." 

Dan lifts his hand and throws something at Phil - something that connects and almost sends Phil to his knees. He howls in surprise and pain. "What the hell!" 

"Do you still think you're dreaming?" Dan asks. He sounds cocky and a little proud. "I've got more, by the way. Don't try anything." 

Phil looks down at the floor. There's a heavy wooden elephant about the size of a tennis ball. Dan must have been holding it behind his back 

"That's not fair," Phil says, rubbing his thigh where it connected. 

At least Dan hadn't aimed a bit to the left. Or maybe he had, and his coordination was just off. 

"You know what's not fair? I was kicking ass at Mario Kart and some weirdo walks into my house." 

For the first time, Phil really wants to wake up. His leg is still throbbing and Dan isn't Dan and somehow that hurts now, too. 

Phil frowns. "We played Mario Kart last night." 

"Fat bloody chance," Dan says. "I was out with my mates last night." 

"Which ones?" Phil asks. 

"I'm not giving you their fucking names," Dan says. "I was with my girlfriend, too, though. So whatever weird ideas you have about me being in bed with you, just - don't. I'm not a fucking f-" 

"Dan." Phil's voice is sharp suddenly. 

He had enough years of Dan flinging around words like that out of self hatred. Dream or no dream, he's left that era behind and happily so. He won't revisit it for anything. 

Dan goes small, shrinking back. "What." 

"I'm gay," Phil says, boldly and bluntly. 

"So." Dan looks terrified in a different way now. "I'm not." 

Phil doesn't tell him that he is. That'd be awfully mean to do. This Dan is sixteen years old and Phil knows he's never met a gay person in his life that didn't hide or fear what he was. Instead he says, "There's nothing wrong with it." 

"Sure," Dan says, scorn in his voice. 

"Sometimes-" Phil isn't sure where these words are coming from, he just knows he wants to say them very much now. Maybe his subconscious is just playing therapist. "Sometimes when you're young you're stuck in a crap situation. When I was fifteen-" 

"I'm sixteen," Dan interrupts to say. 

Phil almost smiles. "When I was sixteen, too, I lived at home with my parents and I went to sixth form and I didn't tell anyone, ever, that I fancied boys. I lied to everyone and I pretended there were girls I liked and that I was disappointed when they didn't like me. But I grew up, you know? I grew up and I went to university and I my friends found out and they were fine with it, and my mum and dad found out and they were fine with it, too. It wasn't always perfect but it wasn't ever as bad as I thought it would be back when I couldn't imagine what getting to live and be honest was like. And the best part is, I met-" 

He stops. _You_ , he was going to say. 

"Who?" Dan asks. His eyes are wide now. 

"A boy," Phil says. "Who was the most perfect boy I could have ever met. He's loud and he gets sad sometimes and he always beats me at Mario Kart but he's been there by my side for over ten years now, and I've been by his side. He used to be scared a lot, just like you, but the more he figures out what he wants his life to be, the happier he is." 

Dan is quiet for a long time. He wraps his arms around his chest, wrists pale and knobby and fingers clenched. He's wearing a black My Chemical Romance t-shirt and Phil almost says something else, then decides not to. Time and a place, after all. 

"Am I the one who’s dreaming?" Dan asks. "You're talking about me, right?" 

Phil shrugs. "I guess. But not you, as you are right now." 

"Yeah, I think I'd remember that if it were, thanks," Dan says sarcastically. "So me from like, the future?" 

Phil shrugs again. "I don't actually know." 

"If you're from the future you should tell me something important," Dan says. "Like lottery numbers or how to save the world." 

"Um," Phil thinks. "Stop using single use plastics and plant some trees?" 

Dan snorts. 

"I really don't know," Phil admits. "I don't know how to tell you to save the world. Just... yourself." 

"I don't need saving," Dan says. "Do I?"

Phil feels very sad suddenly. He wants to tell Dan that maybe he does need saving. Or maybe just that Dan's stronger than he thinks he is. He'd like to tell Dan that he also thinks it's fucking unfair that Dan had to be strong through so many awful things and that Phil will never stop being angry at every person who hurt Dan when he was this fragile, bruisable age. He wants to tell Dan that he can't tell him how to save the world but that he needs him to save himself because Dan _is_ Phil's entire world. 

But it's just a dream, and Phil's going to wake up any moment now- 

Any moment now. 

Any moment. 

Now.

He groans and turns, foot twisted in a blanket. He kicks out and frees it but also connects with Dan's shin in the process. 

"Fucking hell," Dan says, shoving Phil back in a half-asleep way. 

Phil doesn't wake enough to remember anything with clarity, just hazy vignettes of picture frames on a mantle and sad brown eyes. They're fading already and by the time he grunts and rolls over to press his face back into the pillow, they're all but forgotten. 

*

The next morning over coffee, Dan squints his eyes and asks, "What the fuck happened to you?" 

Phil - wearing only a t-shirt and pants - looks down. There's a massive bruise already purpling around the edges on his thigh. He frowns, something tickling at the back of his mind, then shrugs. "You know me," he says. "Always bumping into something." 

"Well." Dan stands up and walks over to the counter, resting a hand lightly on Phil's hip and kissing his shoulder. "Be more careful next time." 

Phil smiles and reacts with a surge of warmth that's more than an absent minded statement of sweetness really warrants. He catches Dan by the arm and pulls him back for a kiss. 

"What's that for?" Dan asks. 

Phil shrugs. "Nothing, I guess. Just... love you." 

"Weirdo," Dan says, smiling fondly, and goes to check their breakfast.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to sarah for being endlessly patient with the way i definitely don't know the difference in 'less' and 'fewer' or 'that' and 'who' <3


End file.
